The Effects of Visually-Enhanced Instructional Environments on Students' Conceptual Growth

This study was designed to (a) determine the effects of visually-enhanced hands-on student instruction as compared with non-visually enhanced hands on instruction, and (b) test the feasibility of using simple concept map-like structures as a means of determining student conceptual growth in a non-language dependent manner. Using Paivio's (1971) Dual-Coding theory and Sutton's (1992) "burr diagrams" as guiding influences to this study, two separate experiments were performed with grade 6 students in a quasi-experimental study in which both groups received instruction in meteorology (experiment 1, n=37) or astronomy (experiment 2, n=57) using at least 50% hands-on activities and investigations. Treatment classes had their instructional environment enhanced by the use of multiple image sources, while the control classes did not. Burr diagrams with content concept words were used in a pretest-posttest fashion to determine students' conceptual growth. Independent samples t-tests of gain scores on the burr diagrams indicate a significant difference between the two classes in both experiments, implying that the use of visual enhancements is an effective augmentation strategy for hands-on learning. In addition, burr diagrams proved a simple and quick indicator of student conceptual growth. Additional studies will determine the reliability of both the visual enhancements and the burr diagrams themselves.